Dear Grief,

I did not invite you here, yet here you proudly stand, knowing the urgency of the message you bear.

Your presence incites vexation, as it taunts me to surrender to the resulting waves of buried emotions.

Naturally, I felt I had cleared out these remnants during our previous interlude, yet you reappear in a grandeur I am coerced to heed.

I have avoided you, as I did not want to fully say goodbye to even the mere memory of what I have known.

However, in this instance, you draw my attention to what has masqueraded as a deep longing within my heart, that is shockingly exposed as unhealed pain.

As I inspect the damage within, you clarify that these triggering pains are not props staged as a nemesis; on the contrary, they are my greatest allies in my quest for peace.

Your arrival is the invitation to walk within the confines of my heart space I have unknowingly barricaded; it heralds the bellowed screams erupting from my soul begging me to accept my truth held within.

You plainly state that the only way out is through; I must feel every ounce of emotion that lies dormant, especially the ones I had willfully evaded that are now cemented to the walls of my heart.

Perfectly timed in this springtide, we greet the deep emotions of our hearts as they are thawing. We listen to their rich history, integrate the lessons, and allow them to fertilize the soil to receive the virgin seeds of our beckoning soul.

Some emotions need an encore to truly be felt, so we pay homage to them as long as necessary, we absorb each layer with innate curiosity, and harmonize them within our cells.

Oh Grief, you most certainly haunt, yet you paradoxically long to heal us; while you lovingly threaten a reproduction until your teachings are espoused.

So, I am mindful your objective is fully assimilated within my being during this finale.

Oh Sweet Grief, you have taught me that by hanging on to you, the resentment, the sadness, and the anger that I felt towards myself and others, keeps me from the freedom for which my soul yearns.

I lingered, expecting my last quick look at the battlefield within my heart to be healing enough. I waited when the pain reemerged, counting on the noise surrounding me to drown out your presence.

I clung to the hope that I did not need to lose my attachment to those old parts of me, yet you showed me that they were only meant for a part of my journey.

I did not want to lose those that were not ready to give up their parts in the play, yet you assure me that they will find their own way when they are ready.

You remind me that as we heal parts of our hearts, a light shines out for another, but we cannot force another to make peace within their own heart. I pause in a moment of gratitude for them, as they guided me to this new, hopeful, space within my being.

So I muster all my courage and go within the marrow of my retiring character to remember what needed healing and the shadows the antagonists brought to life within its form.

The nauseating comfort to which I was ironically addicted, has been replaced by a deep gratitude for the experience, while accepting it is time to release the perception of all that I knew.

As we slowly lose our darkest days, I let go.

A feeling of love and forgiveness swells within me, while I bid farewell to the former parts of me and recall that my attachment to others in this play are only linked by the expired parts of myself, so I lovingly release them too.

I exhale breaths of relief and am lighter knowing this detachment creates space for a greater capacity to love in all ways.

Oh Dear Grief, you taught me we die to parts of ourselves as often as we are ready, for life within can begin anew with each sunset.

The darkness we experience until dawn is merely the unknown path before us, as we sit in the cleansing waters prior to reemerging from the sacred womb.

You prod me along and remind me to fear not this dark abyss, but to anticipate the birth of all that comes to life with the sunrise as we fully live our soul’s calling.

As the cast reappears for the long awaited denouement, you read aloud my soul’s proclamation:

Who are you now, for I no longer hold you in your expired play?

Farewell Dear Grief, until we meet again.

~Nicola

Wild Spirit Soul Healing